Mathematicians of India

Many of the ideas in this lab were discovered, or discovered again, by mathematicians in India. Here are ten of them, from the Śulba-Sūtras to the twentieth century (Āryabhaṭa, Brahmagupta, Śrīdharācārya and Bhāskara II are named in your NCERT Class 10 book), with the activities where their ideas appear.

Baudhāyana

around 800 BCE

His Śulba-Sūtra states the theorem on which the distance formula and every right-triangle trigonometry problem rest.

In this lab: Equally Far from Two Points · One Ratio Gives All

Piṅgala

around the 3rd century BCE

His counting of patterns of short and long syllables is an early study of counting outcomes, the starting point of probability.

In this lab: Two Dice, 36 Outcomes

Āryabhaṭa

born 476 CE

His Āryabhaṭīya gives rules for the sum of an arithmetic progression and uses the half-chord (ardha-jyā), from which the word “sine” comes, as NCERT notes.

In this lab: Sum of n Terms · sin(A + B) Is Not sin A + sin B

Brahmagupta

598 – about 668 CE

He gave an explicit rule for solving quadratic equations and rules for working with zero and negative numbers.

In this lab: Split the Middle Term · The Root That Vanished

Śrīdharācārya

around 1025 CE (as NCERT dates him)

He derived the formula now known as the quadratic formula, by the method of completing the square, as quoted by Bhāskara II.

In this lab: The Quadratic Formula · Equal Roots: Find k

Bhāskara II

1114 – 1185 CE

His Bījagaṇita and Līlāvatī contain quadratic equations, progressions and many problems on heights and shadows.

In this lab: Reject the Impossible Root · Shadows Tell the Height

Mādhava of Saṅgamagrāma

about 1340 – 1425 CE

The founder of the Kerala school, who found infinite series for sine, cosine and π centuries before they appeared in Europe.

In this lab: The Identity Shortcut · Segment = Sector − Triangle

Srinivasa Ramanujan

1887 – 1920

A self-taught genius whose work on numbers and series is still used today, including in the design of fast computer methods.

In this lab: Lowest Powers, Highest Powers · Build the Proof

P. C. Mahalanobis

1893 – 1972

Founder of the Indian Statistical Institute, who showed how sample surveys can measure a whole country.

In this lab: Mean of Grouped Data · Median of Grouped Data

C. R. Rao

1920 – 2023

One of the greatest statisticians of the twentieth century; methods named after him are used wherever data are analysed.

In this lab: Mode of Grouped Data · Is It a Probability?

The CBSE Maths Lab SOP suggests a display of Indian mathematicians. Schools can print this page as a poster set, or ask each group of students to research one name and add a portrait.